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"Oh, messire, but do you not perceive that you have brought life into this
horrible place! You have given of this life to me, in the most direct and
speedy fashion. But life is very contagious. Already it is spreading by
infection."
And Jurgen regarded the old king, as the girl indicated. The withered ruffian
stayed motionless: but from his nostrils came slow augmenting jets of vapor,
as though he were beginning to breathe in a chill place. This was odd, because
the cave was not cold.
"And all the others too are snorting smoke," says Jurgen. "Upon my word I
think this is a delightful place to be leaving."
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First, though, he unfastened the king's swordbelt, and girded himself
therewith, sword, dagger and all. "Now
I have arms befitting my fine shirt," says Jurgen.
Then the girl showed him a sort of passage way, by which they ascended
fortynine steps roughly hewn in stone, and so came to daylight. At the top of
the stairway was an iron trapdoor, and this door at the girl's instruction
Jurgen lowered. There was no way of fastening the door from without.
"But Thragnar is not to be stopped by bolts or padlocks," the girl said.
"Instead, we must straightway mark this door with a cross, since that is a
symbol which Thragnar cannot pass."
Jurgen's hand had gone instinctively to his throat. Now he shrugged. "My dear
young lady, I no longer carry the cross. I must fight Thragnar with other
weapons."
"Two sticks will serve, laid crosswise "
Jurgen submitted that nothing would be easier than to lift the trapdoor, and
thus dislodge the sticks. "They will tumble apart without anyone having to
touch them, and then what becomes of your crucifix?"
"Why, how quickly you think of everything!" she said, admiringly. "Here is a
strip from my sleeve, then. We will tie the twigs together."
Jurgen did this, and laid upon the trapdoor a recognizable crucifix. "Still,
when anyone raises the trapdoor whatever lies upon it will fall off. Without
disparaging the potency of your charm, I cannot but observe that in this case
it is peculiarly difficult to handle. Magician or no, I would put heartier
faith in a stout padlock."
So the girl tore another strip, from the hem of her gown, and then another
from her right sleeve, and with these they fastened their cross to the surface
of the trapdoor, in such a fashion that the twigs could not be dislodged from
beneath. They mounted the fine steed whose bridle was marked with a coronet,
the girl riding pillion, and they turned westward, since the girl said this
was best.
For, as she now told Jurgen, she was Guenevere, the daughter of Gogyrvan, King
of Glathion and the Red
Islands. So Jurgen told her he was the Duke of Logreus, because he felt it was
not appropriate for a pawnbroker to be rescuing princesses: and he swore, too,
that he would restore her safely to her father, whatever Thragnar might
attempt. And all the story of her nefarious capture and imprisonment by King
Thragnar did Dame Guenevere relate to Jurgen, as they rode together through
the pleasant May morning.
She considered the Troll King could not well molest them. "For now you have
his charmed sword, Caliburn, the only weapon with which Thragnar can be slain.
Besides, the sign of the cross he cannot pass. He beholds and trembles."
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice
32
"My dear Princess, he has but to push up the trapdoor from beneath, and the
cross, being tied to the trapdoor, is promptly moved out of his way. Failing
this expedient, he can always come out of the cave by the other opening,
through which I entered. If this Thragnar has any intelligence at all and a
reasonable amount of tenacity, he will presently be at hand."
"Even so, he can do no harm unless we accept a present from him. The
difficulty is that he will come in disguise."
"Why, then, we will accept gifts from nobody."
"There is, moreover, a sign by which you may distinguish Thragnar. For if you
deny what he says, he will promptly concede you are in the right. This was the
curse put upon him by Miramon Lluagor, for a detection and a hindrance."
"By that unhuman trait," says Jurgen, "Thragnar ought to be very easy to
distinguish."
10. Pitiful Disguises of Thragnar
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NEXT, the tale tells that as Jurgen and the Princess were nearing Gihon, a man
came riding toward them, full armed in black, and having a red serpent with an
apple in its mouth painted upon his shield.
"Sir knight," says he, speaking hollowly from the closed helmet, "you must
yield to me that lady."
"I think," says Jurgen, civilly, "that you are mistaken."
So they fought, and presently, since Caliburn was a resistless weapon, and he
who wore the scabbard of
Caliburn could not be wounded, Jurgen prevailed; and gave the strange knight
so heavy a buffet that the knight fell senseless.
"Do you think," says Jurgen, about to unlace his antagonist's helmet, "that
this is Thragnar?"
"There is no possible way of telling," replied Dame Guenevere: "if it is the
Troll King he should have offered you gifts, and when you contradicted him he
should have admitted you were right. Instead, he proffered nothing, and to
contradiction he answered nothing, so that proves nothing."
"But silence is a proverbial form of assent. At all events, we will have a
look at him."
"But that too will prove nothing, since Thragnar goes about his mischiefs so
disguised by enchantments as invariably to resemble somebody else, and not
himself at all."
"Such dishonest habits introduce an element of uncertainty, I grant you," says
Jurgen. "Still, one can rarely err by keeping on the safe side. This person
is, in any event, a very illbred fellow, with probably immoral intentions.
Yes, caution is the main thing, and in justice to ourselves we will keep on
the safe side."
So without unloosing the helmet, he struck off the strange knight's head, and
left him thus. The Princess was now mounted on the horse of their deceased
assailant.
"Assuredly," says Jurgen then, "a magic sword is a fine thing, and a very
necessary equipment, too, for a knight errant of my age."
"But you talk as though you were an old man, Messire de Logreus!"
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice
33
"Come now," thinks Jurgen, "this is a princess of rare discrimination. What,
after all, is fortyandsomething when one is wellpreserved? This uncommonly
intelligent girl reminds me a little of Marcouève, whom I
loved in Artein: besides, she does not look at me as women look at an elderly
man. I like this princess, in fact, I adore this princess. I wonder now what
would she say if I told her as much?"
But Jurgen did not tempt chance that time, for just then they encountered a
boy who had frizzed hair and painted cheeks. He walked mincingly, in a curious
garb of black bespangled with gold lozenges, and he carried a gilded dung
fork.
* * *
Then Jurgen and the Princess came to a black and silver pavilion standing by
the roadside. At the door of the pavilion was an appletree in blossom: from a
branch of this tree was suspended a black huntinghorn, silvermounted. A woman
waited there alone. Before her was a chessboard, with the ebony and silver
pieces set ready for a game, and upon the table to her left hand glittered
flagons and goblets of silver. Eagerly this woman rose and came toward the
travellers.
"Oh, my dear Jurgen," says she, "but how fine you look in that new shirt you
are wearing! But there was never a man had better taste in dress, as I have
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